


The Avengers Are Not Invincible (They Just Act Like It)

by TheoMiller



Series: something bigger [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asgard, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sarcasm, Swearing, Violence, Warning: Loki, mislead, the gang's all here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: Or, the one where Tony has a plan, and New York is quiet. Alternately: mislead.docx. Alternately alternately: the one where a sudden time skip happens, and realpolitik just got real.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> Guys. Guys, I cannot stress this enough, I need you to trust me. No matter who you are, there's going to be a point in this fic where you go "what the FUCK, @writer" and I need you to have some faith. Let me bring it on home, all right lads?
> 
> Violence is a thing that happens. So if you're squeamish about violence please see end notes.

**P R O L O G U E**

_**APPROXIMATELY THREE WEEKS PREVIOUSLY, WASHINGTON D.C.:** _

"Official Avengers brief for you, Madame President," said the intern. He was darting nervous looks at the folder; encounters with Phil Coulson could do that to you, if he felt like impressing upon you how vital it was to not peek at classified documents.

Pepper took the briefing packet with a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Collins."

He seemed gratified by the fact that she knew his name, and retreated with a blush that had creeped up to the tips of his ears.

_I've prefaced this briefing packet with what Skye calls a "tl;dr", since you're a busy woman,_ Phil had written in handwriting that probably wasn't his real script, but a blander facsimile. She smiled at the implied self-deprecations of not knowing the latest slang.

_As per previous briefing packet re: Black Widow's visit to Asgard, Loki has been displaced from the throne of Asgard, shortly after Thor abdicated to him._

_Per aforementioned briefing packet, an Asgardian by the name of Baldur is on the throne. He is the half-brother of Thor. Amended family tree of the royal family of Asgard is included, Attachment 3A._

_As per more recent previous briefing packet, Loki was recovered from a cavern in northern Virginia, badly injured, along with wife (ex-wife?) Sigyn._

_New information is as follows:_

_The children of Loki were also targeted. Six are known._

  * _Nari (half Frost Giant, quarter Asgardian, quarter Vanir) is dead. Remains were recovered with Loki._
  * _Vali (half Frost Giant, quarter Asgardian, quarter Vanir) is the twin brother of Nari. Turned into a monstrous wolf [sic]; location and status unknown. Presumed dead._
  * _Hel (half Frost Giant, maternal pedigree unclear) is missing. Medium-risk target. Mortality unknown._
  * _Jormungander (half Frost Giant, maternal pedigree unclear) is missing. High-risk target. Presumed to be held or buried on Earth._
  * _Fenrir (half Frost Giant, maternal pedigree unclear) is missing. Believed to be held captive on Asgard. Presumed alive._
  * _Sleipnir (half Frost Giant, half stallion as fast as wind [sic]) is captive of Baldur. Intel per Black Widow states he was interred in cell in palace of Asgard as of three months ago._



_In response to these crimes against his nephews- and niece-by-adoption, Thor has sworn an oath to Loki that he will 'recover them alive or dead and mete out justice against those who have harmed them' [sic]._

_The Avengers have agreed to back him._

_If Avengers are seen to act for whole of humanity against the king of Asgard, interplanetary (interdimensional? intergalactic?) war will ensue._

Pepper set down the front page, feeling a headache coming on already. She picked up the phone and dialed Coulson.

"Coulson speaking," he answered.

"I'd better not be reading what I think I'm reading."

"What are you reading?"

She noticed a footnote and flipped to the corresponding pages. "Right now, risk assessment and statistical probability reports on war."

"Ah, yes, that," said Coulson. "If it helps, the Avengers do possess the curious ability to bend the laws of probability around themselves."

"Don't remind me," she said.

"It gets worse," he said.

She reached for her bottle of Tylenol. This was going to be a very bad headache. "How much worse, exactly?"

"You, of course, recall the Incident last summer."

Pepper remembered the incident. It had almost destroyed her campaign. The Avengers had been out of commission for a little over a week. Luckily, the spin they'd taken was that it proved that Ross's complaints about concentration of power were fallacious. If the world was safe even without the Avengers, then it couldn't be too dangerous for Pepper to have a positive working relationship with the Avengers.

"I was under the impression that our _friend_ from last summer had been taken care of."

Not killed, but taken care of – somehow, Sigyn had talked the sorceress down, they'd squared things up, and she'd agreed to stay the hell away from Earth – and frankly at this point, Pepper would prefer more permanent methods of taking care of problems.

Especially if they were going to recur.

"Three of the six are hers," he said.

She returned to his "tl;dr" section. _Maternal pedigree unclear_ , she reread. She'd thought it mean Loki refused to say who the mother was – but if they knew Iarnvidia Ironwood was the mother, then obviously the question was more 'what aliens species are they hybrids with', and _wow_ it was hard to believe she'd just been a PA ten years ago.

"We still don't know what she is?"

"No," he said. "Pepper, things are going to get dicey. Iarnvidia's an unknown quantity, Baldur can see and hear anything he chooses via Heimdall, and Loki and Sigyn are too weak to do anything should the worst happen."

"Then we have to assume Baldur knows there's no way Thor will let him get away with it – and Thor has a team. Damn it all."

"That's the long and short of it," he agreed.

She sighed. "Tell them to _think_ about this first? Before any of them do something they regret?"

"I'm working on it."

"Keep me updated. I've got meetings. Talk to you later, Phil."

They hung up, and Pepper looked up at the ceiling medallion like the plaster eagle might somehow help her. Dealing with the Avengers was, for her and probably Phil as well, rather like when Tony was engineering. Important, undeniably important, and also liable to blow up in one's face at any given moment.


	2. Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice some other characters we haven't really seen before in this verse are here. They should be known to you nonetheless. If not, never fear, they will be introduced in their Aline Versions (TM) soon enough. 
> 
> (My Pietro, Wanda, Peter, and Miles are not even remotely movie canon compliant, but I will be drawing from the comics to introduce them to this universe.)
> 
> I sat down and pounded out roughly 4,300 words in order to really stir up the ol' audience interest.

_**NEW YORK:** _

Steve was the first to go down.

It would've been almost beautiful, if it weren't the worst thing Tony had ever seen. Just a simple, perfectly executed pivot, gun raised, trigger pulled, but done with the grace of a pirouette by a master dancer. Iarnvidia didn't even watch him fall, secure in the knowledge that he was done. And Tony had seen - well, heard of - people surviving a bullet through the skull. But there was a ringing finality to it, and too much blood, and no medical care for blocks, and no time.

Iarnvidia didn't stop, but the rest of them did.

Tony pulled up, abrupt, forgetting to even adjust the repulsors. JARVIS was speaking in his ear, trying to prompt him to action, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the too-dark pool of blood spilling across the asphalt. People were screaming - civilians, maybe, or SHIELD agents, or members of the team. Maybe it was just the ringing in his ears.

And then movement. The Hulk roared, and the ground shook in ever increasing increments as he covered a half a mile in mere moments, and Natasha was a flickering shadow closing in on her prey, and two different snipers moved on two different rooftops, and it looked for all the world like they were about to put the vengeance in Avengers.

For all the world.

Iarnvidia pulled the trigger again, pointing the gun at empty space this time, and by the time the bullet left the chamber Natasha had moved into its path, moving too quickly to stop herself. It caught her in the chest and she stumbled, hands fluttering up and coming away red.

Before anyone could so much as call out to Natasha, Iarnvidia grabbed her, blocked Clint's arrow with her body, and then tossed her aside. Natasha hit the ground several meters away with an arrow's shaft protruding from her stomach, blood spilling out over her lip, directly in the Hulk's thundering path.

For a split second it seemed like he wouldn't stop. And then he did, with an animal scream so terrible that it stunned Tony out of his shock, and as Tony barreled towards Iarnvidia at rapidly-approaching-Mach 2, the Hulk vanished, replaced by the too small, too mortal form of Bruce Banner, whose anguished cry was somehow worse than the teeth-rattling one from the Hulk.

Iarnvidia sidestepped Tony neatly, stupid, _stupid_ , he was going too fast to maneuver properly, /think tony/, but Bucky and Peter were already there, Peter staying back, giving Bucky a lift down to street level, and Bucky coming in hot, arm up to block return fire.

Iarnvidia brushed off his bullets. Too late, Peter tried to pull Bucky out, but he was too close, and Iarnvidia got too shots off at close range, past the arm, and Bucky swung past, limp and lifeless like a marionette doll.

She grabbed the web and yanked.

Peter shot out another strand, tried to catch himself, but he went through a plate glass window and Iarnvidia fired off a shot after him. There was silence from inside the building.

"Fuck," said Tony. His head was swimming, his vision blurry, he couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't avenge---Bucky was a crumpled heap on the pavement, soaking web rope with blood---Steve was just lying back there, he could see Natasha, reaching up to touch Bruce's face, leaving a trail of red in her wake. "FUCK."

Iarnvidia cocked her head. Turned to face him. Smiled. He didn't like that smile one bit.

She fired past him.

For a half second it looked like she missed. And then a silvery blur came past him in a hail of arrows, and he understood.

Iarnvidia let Pietro slam into her, let him bounce off of her.

"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE," Tony screamed at him, and finally he came aware of the babble of voices in his earpiece.

"Dead," Sam was saying, in a too-flat voice. "St---Rogers is out. Get her away from Barnes and Parker, I can't do anything from back here."

"Those arrows are explosive, it should distract her. Banner, Banner I swear to fuck if you don't give me Nat's status I'm going to - "

The arrows kicked off in a series of small explosions, and Pietro gave up trying to tangle with a giant in favor of zooming from downed teammate to downed teammate.

When Tony was back at a safe distance, finally aware enough to fire repulsors at Iarnvidia in rapid succession while she moved through the sea of abandoned vehicles and hot dog carts, he shut off everyone else's mics for a second so he could take charge. "Quicksilver, status on injured."

There was an awful pause, and then Pietro said what they all knew he would say. "They're all dead," he whispered.

"Where the fuck is Thor," Clint demanded.

"We're like gnats to her," said Sam.

She was practically ignoring a hailstorm of arrows, bullets, and repulsor blasts. Inexorable, she made her way back towards the main intersection despite being knocked back every few steps by Tony.

"Wilson, get out of there. Grab Banner and - "

Iarnvidia ejected the clip from her handgun, replaced it with a second, and then emptied it into Bruce.

Tony went from almost catatonic with grief to furious. He hit her hard enough to bruise through the protective under-suit, and Pietro moved in with Steve's shield - smeared with blood like something out of Tony's nightmares, oh god - and for a second they were pretty successful in pummeling her.

And then she grabbed the shield right out of Pietro's hands and threw it with inhuman strength.

There was an awful sound, metal on metal, and then... repulsors sputtering.

Tony twisted around in time to see War Machine drop from the sky like a rock.

"No! Rhodey!" He sprinted for a second before his own propulsion kicked in, and caught the armor. "You should've stayed back. Oh, god, Rhodey... JARVIS, damage report."

"Suit biometrics are indicating five ribs broken, both lungs punctured, shrapnel in the liver, cardiac wall, and large intestine. I'm sorry, Sir."

Tony ripped the faceplate off. "No, no, Rhodey, stay with me, I can't lose you too."

Rhodey blinked up at him, mouth forming his name, but the sounds didn't come, just labored breathing.

He lifted a hand, gauntlet gleaming in the sunlight, and launched a missile.

"She's hit but not down," Clint reported.

"You're my best friend," said Tony. "You know that, right?"

Rhodey nodded, just the tiniest bit, lips quirking up. _Goddamn diva, Tony._

"Stark, you have incoming."

"We'll buy you some time," Morales chimed in. "SHIELD's going active, and the Four are en route."

"Morales, get Maximoff and Wilson clear," Barton said.

"Like hell," said Pietro, and flung himself ay her again, the momentum combined with the recent missile hit knocking her off balance, and then Pietro came back into clear sight, because she'd grabbed him by the the throat and lifted his feet off the ground.

"Let him go, he's just a kid," Sam yelled.

Pietro struggled as she lifted him up higher, clutching at the hand around his throat, but his movements were growing weaker and weaker.

Her grip tightened, and he went still. She dropped him like a rag doll and stepped over his body, heading straight for Sam.

Morales flung web at her, trying to slow her down, while Tony and Clint hit her with a double volley of arrows and energy blasts again - her hair was falling in her face, her dress smudged with soot, and her amber eyes were starting to show a hint of exhaustion at the effort - and Sam took to flight.

"She's stuck," Miles yelled.

"Tony, minimum safe distance, looks like explosives are our best bet," Clint said. "Grenade!"

He flung it, and his aim was as good as ever, but Iarnvidia snatched it from the air.

"Barton!"

No mortal could throw a grenade onto a high rise, but she wasn't mortal.

Clint leapt from the building a second before the explosion destroyed the rooftop he'd been perched on.

Sam caught him, but only barely, and the resulting roll sent them both flying.

Iarnvidia turned on Miles. "I am losing patience for spiders," she growled, finally pulling herself free of the sticky webbing.

"Stark, we're on site, get the kid clear," Coulson's voice cut in, just as Tony touched down between Iarnvidia and Miles.

"I'm trying, but we've got injured living here, Falcon and Hawkeye went down."

A familiar face in a SHIELD uniform dropped from the nearby bank's roof. "Get the hell out of here, Tony," Skye said. "Take Miles. I'll look after Sam and Clint, just go."

He hesitated, but Iarnvidia was distracted by the newcomer, twisting to face her. "Up we go," he said, and grabbed Miles's shoulders.

"Like hell!"

"You saw what she did to the others, we've lost too many."

"Let me go, Tony!"

Tony hit what he deemed a minimum safe height and looked down in time to see Skye hit the side of a building hard, too hard for any human body to possibly survive.

"Are we the only ones left?"

"Those who live by the sword are forced to die by it," Tony said, his voice hollow.

-

_**ASGARD:** _

Heimdall turned to Baldur. "The mortals have been laid to waste by the giantess," he said gravely. "You were correct in your estimates of her nature. With Loki ruined, and Thor lost in grief, and none to rein her in vicious impulses, she was lost to rage."

Baldur, who had watched with Heimdall, enraptured, still looked down at Midgard's visage with gleaming eyes. "Her species always do," he said. "Has Midgard ever been so inclined towards such dubious allies?"

"They are small, and mortal. Their only strength comes from such dependence on others."

"Where do they go with the bodies of their vanquished heroes?" He asked, watching the flashing lights of emergency vehicles withdraw from the battleground like the receding tide, carrying away their dead and injured while a band of four marched to certain death against the giantess. "Will they not build a pyre before the carcasses take to rot?"

"They pass briefly beyond my sight, into their stronghold's corridor, and then their bodies will be subject to cold, to stave the rot while they prepare their rituals of mourning amd burial."

"They have a stronghold beyond your sight?"

"Only a mere threshold."

Baldur looked supremely unconcerned. "We will dismantle it, now that they are bowed, once the battle is won, one way or the other."

"Of course, my king. I shall send word to you when a victor is decided, be it giantess or mortals."

Baldur gazed again over the Man of Iron and the boy, huddled in a dwelling far from their tower stronghold, and over the bodies of what Midgard had deemed their mightiest heroes.

"Either way," he said, "I win."

-

_**UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, FIVE DAYS PREVIOUS:** _

"You can work one of these, right?"

Iarnvidia looked up from the pistol, expression sardonic. "Yes," she said. "I can operate your primitive Midgardian weaponry. Point, shoot, and then reloading."

"And you _have_ to hit Captain America right in the head, between the eyes, because the cowl is bullet-resistant, and his healing factor could probably handle anything else. And once he's down, your focus has to be—"

"On the Widow, yes, I know the plan. You are certain this will work?"

"I've run the simulations, it's basically foolproof," he said.

She lowered the pistol. "And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"We have agreed that you will be spared. But you are a mortal, will your weak constitution be able to handle what must be done? How am I to know that you will not enter the blood rage of a warrior and turn on me, when the streets of Manhattan run with blood, and your team's lifeless bodies lay before you?"

Tony Stark smiled humorlessly. "I'm not afraid of a little blood," he told her. "Just don't shoot me, and everything will go according to plan."

-

_**NEW YORK, PRESENT TIME:** _

Phil Coulson was _tired_.

There had been silence at first, the awful, shaken silence of people who've lost all hope.

Most times, New York was a city that could seemingly shake off anything. Phil had now witnessed all three exceptions to that rule from the midst of the chaos, but never from inside the city.

New York struck dumb with horror was eerie—the crunch of rubble under the boots of first responders, the occasional weeping from civilians huddled together just beyond the barricades, the receding sirens of a row of ambulances emblazoned in red—but it had at least been quiet.

Once the fear morphed into anger, well. That had been an entirely different circle of hell. Reporters had flocked him, because even though the general public believed that Phil Coulson, the mild-mannered man who didn't quite understand Twitter, was simply mid-level management at the reformed SHIELD, they knew SHIELD was SHIELD, and SHIELD had the answers.

And they wanted answers. Not the rubberstamped, carefully crafted public statements of a politician, either. New York – and by extension, America, and probably much of the world beyond it – wanted to know how one person had brought down all of the Avengers when entire armies had failed.

"Please," he'd said, after deftly not-quite-answering the hundredth or so question, "I know you're frightened, I know you want explanations, but…" Phil had affected a little tremor, just enough to for his voice to crack, to give them their soundbites. "One of the agents who went down was my daughter. Clint Barton, my partner, is in the ICU. I have over a dozen bodies to personally identify while more qualified agents handle containment and cleanup. Please, be patient, and we'll update you when we can."

And he'd gone to the hospital to see Clint and Sam—Sam was sedated, and Clint was in the OR, so _seeing_ wasn't exactly literal—and he'd given Tripp and Kate a few hours off to stay there, and once all the paperwork was ready and May confirmed she was handling the situation, he went to the morgue.

The flashing of cameras and emergency lights, combined with the noise and the tension in his shoulders, had brewed up a headache of epic proportions. Now, in the morgue, having coaxed the pathologist into turning off the infernal fluorescents, the darkness and silence was a welcome relief.

"Are you ready to begin the process of identification, sir?"

Phil looked at the pathologist. He looked frightened. Not of Phil, probably of the alien/goddess who'd just flattened a dozen superheroes. Or maybe ust frightened of what the future held now.

He was inclined to agree.

"Let's get it over with," he said.

Rhodes was first. There would've been a time when Coulson could say he barely knew the man – in the beginning, when he was just _Associate of Stark, T._ in SHIELD's files – but now, now he was identifying the Vice-President of the United States and (more importantly) his best friend's lover. He would've been able to make a positive ID with a mere glance, but that seemed disrespectful.

"The armor he was in is classified, every piece of it has to be incinerated by a SHIELD operative of level six access or higher," he said.

"They cut most of it off of him on the way here," said the pathologist, "it's probably in the truck."

His people would have it already, or maybe the Secret Service, and they were at least moderately trustworthy, since Potts was in charge now. There'd be nothing left for anyone without appropriate clearance to examine. He nodded. "It's definitely him."

 _RHODES, JAMES_ , the pathologist wrote.

Then there were too-young faces to look at: Peter's, pallid against the white sheet and the metal slab; Wanda's, dark curls stiffened with blood; Pietro's, eyes open.

 _ROMANOFF, NATASHA_ lay between _BARNES, JAMES_ and _BANNER, BRUCE_. Then Steve Rogers, who had gone from storybook hero to frozen block of ice to a flesh-and-blood comrade (and even friend), only to be this. A cold, empty facsimile of the man Coulson knew, devoid of any spark of life.

The pathologist hesitated, even once Coulson had confirmed it, like putting it down on paper would somehow make it real. "Kind of makes me miss the days when he was just presumed dead," he said.

Coulson pretended not to hear him. "Do I really have to…?" He asked, gesturing to the last.

"The mayor himself wanted definitive confirmation of all the casualties," the man said. "You can send someone else in, I guess."

"No, it should be me," said Phil.

Looking at Skye's suddenly frail-seeming form on a stainless steel slab was probably the worst thing he'd ever done. Without thinking, he reached out and touched the slightly discolored chin, waxy under his fingertips. "Do you have kids?" He asked.

"No," said the pathologist.

"I never anticipated it myself. She was a gift, one I'm not sure I deserved."

Phil's work phone began to ring, echoing off the gleaming surface of the drawers and the concrete walls. "I have to take this," he said.

"Of course."

"Coulson," he answered.

"I'm sorry," Kate said. "I'm so sorry."

He kept his answers short, clipped, monosyllabic. Anything more might leave space for some traitorous emotion, and he didn't need that. "Thank you, Agent Bishop." He hung up on her, and turned to the pathologist. "You're going to get two more. Wilson, first name Samuel. And Barton, first name Clinton."

-

_**NEW YORK, FOUR DAYS PREVIOUS:** _

"Tony, come on, you're going to make yourself sick, spending all this time in the workshop," Bucky said. "Stevie's worried about you."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Are you seriously going to pretend this is all just me worrying, like you haven't been pacing around like a damn fool—"

"Oh, I'm the fool, am I?"

"You're a fool in love, and we both know it, even if you refuse to accept it. Right, Tony?"

Tony made a little gesture of acknowledgement. "I'm working on the new printed circuitry synthetic wax for the fabrication units," he said.

"You've been doing nothing but working on your project," Bucky said. "You really this worried?"

He looked up at that. "Worried?"

"About the mission," said Bucky.

Tony didn't answer, which Steve and Bucky took as answer enough. Steve tilted Tony's chin up to look into his eyes.

"Everything will be fine. You're a genius. We're a team. We've got this, Tony."

"Yeah," said Tony. "I know."

"Come to bed when you're ready," Bucky told him. "We'll be here."

-

_**IVUJIVIK, PRESENT TIME:** _

Miles stripped out of his uniform by the fire, and changed as quickly as he could into the sweatpants and hoodie Tony found him. "You gonna get out of that thing any time soon?"

"I'm fine," said Tony dully.

"Bullshit you're fine," Miles said. "Seeing all that—"

"I'm aware of how fucked up today was, thanks, Morales."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Okay. You can mope all the hell you want, but we're the last two left standing, so if you want, you can bottle this up, but you're not going to endanger your safety to punish yourself. Now, get out of your armor and put on some dry clothes. You aren't stranding me alone in a cabin in _Quebec_ because you angsted your way to hypothermia."

There was a pause. Miles was half-expecting Tony to take a swing at him. The armor creaked ominously, and then it started to peel itself apart, and Tony stepped out, shivering a little. "Okay," he said. He picked up the second stack of clothes Miles had retrieved from the dresser in the bedroom.

Miles folded his arms, then remembered privacy was a thing, and shuffled as far from the fire as he could stand, and turned away.

Tony's breathing was kind of ragged as he stripped out of the under suit.

"You okay?"

"I'm always okay."

"Stupid question," said Miles. "Never mind."

"You can turn around now, I'm decent."

When Miles did look back, Tony was already getting into the cupboards in the built-in shelves on the wall of the cabin, rooting around for something. Finally he came back with a box and sat down on one of the arm chairs, dragging the low table closer to himself with a foot hooked around its leg, setting the box down on it and then letting out a sigh.

Tony Stark looked haggard in the fire's light, every inch as old as he was (how old _was_ he?) and older still. Miles tried not to think about Peter going through the window, about silence, about the too-still bodies.

He opened the box; nestled into the dark velvet was a bottle of something probably worth more than Miles's car, with a set of glasses. Tony carefully removed the bottle, arranged the glasses around it, and then lifted the false bottom.

"So," Tony said, pulling out the gun and the clip, fitting them together with ease that made Miles incredibly aware of what, exactly, Stark Industries did before Iron Man. "Here's what happens next."

Miles swallowed.

-

_**NEW YORK, ABOUT TWO HOURS PREVIOUSLY:** _

SHIELD, on the whole, gave no sign of the cataclysmic events that had unfolded not an hour before. There was silence, broken only by terse orders and responses on official lines, as the caravan of emergency vehicles bearing fallen Avengers proceeded through the uncharacteristically obliging streets of a shell-shocked New York. The ambulance drivers, the EMT's displaced by SHIELD agents with cold expressions, would've marveled at their professionalism in the face of horror, had they not been busy freaking out themselves.

The readings were unmistakable. Dead, all of them. The only two who'd survived were en route to the trauma center, and in rough shape.

In the ambulance carrying Steve Rogers, there was a baby-faced agent with a Scottish accent who kept his answers short, stringing only a few words together at a time. In the one carrying the Black Widow, there was a stony-faced man whose only emotion was a mild impatience. And in the one carrying the unknown SHIELD agent who'd been thrown into a building, there was a woman of comparable age who at least seemed approachable. The EMT sitting next to her ventured so far as to ask, "Who was she?"

"A friend," the agent said, in a tone that made it clear that further conversation was out of the question.

They unloaded the gurneys in near-silence, moved them to Stark Industries ones in the loading bay of Avengers Tower.

The overall impression of SHIELD was one of distant strangers in navy and black, with faces that became hard to remember by sheer virtue of limited input, like they were all too quiet and unassuming for memories to form around them. But there were individual cracks in the façade, and if anyone had been able to view them all together instead of in discrete, expressionless packages, they might have seen not faceless agents, but a group of people barely suppressing a commonly shared emotion that threatened to break through.

One by one, the bodies were rolled away, into a secured hallway, and the EMT's were escorted from the loading bay.

"They probably can't let us near their blood," said one of the paramedics. "In case Hydra gets it, or someone else."

"Any scientist worth their salt could probably reverse engineer some of their mutations," agreed another.

The loading bay disappeared in their rearview mirrors.

In the corridor underneath the heart of the tower, the train of gurneys came to a stop, and the agents withdrew to a wider chamber just ahead, where a neat row of bodies laid under yellow-white lights.

And then they started to stir, just one at first, and then the rest, sitting up and stretching sore limbs.

"Let's never do that again," said Natasha. She jumped to her feet and pulled the trick arrow away from her chest. "I'm too old for this kind of op."

"Aw, shove it, least you weren't danglin' from goddamn spider web like a cat toy," said Bucky.

Around them, SHIELD's well-oiled machine began to move the second set of bodies, replacing the real Avengers with their wax doubles, and their unusual silence broke, with agents laughing and talking. The silence that had fallen upon them under the weight of a massive secret had lifted from their shoulders and minds like a curtain rising. The paramedics who had just left might not even recognize them in this state.

Rhodey peeled off the plate of armor. "Always knew Tony was a drama queen, but he really pulled out all the stops."

"Swear I saw a single tear go down his cheek while you were hamming it up," Steve said. "You know, I could get used to lying on the ground for a whole mission."

Bruce sighed. "I recognize you're all trying to cope with the trauma of acting out our collective worst nightmare by running your mouths off, but I'd like to maybe get the cow blood off me before we make fun of everyone's performance," he said.

Peter wrinkled his nose. "Dibs on first shower, the rubber glass stuff you invented hurt less than a real window, Dr. Banner, but it's sticking to the blood."

"I'm really not appreciating how quickly Widow and I fake-died," said Wanda.

"You would've been too formidable an enemy, Melee sorts are weak to Mage attacks," said Peter.

Skye patted him on the head.

They gathered around the table covered with the amulets Sigyn had made to hide them from Heimdall's sight. "The moment of truth," said Rhodey. "Let's see if these things work."

"If they don't, we’re probably going to die for real," Natasha said.

Peter looked at her in horror. "Why would you say that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOME END NOTES:  
> \- If you honestly thought I was going to make Tony Stark a traitor and a villain: don't ever talk to me or my orphaned horde of superhero children again.  
> \- (I'm mostly kidding, if I had you thinking "WHAT THE FUCK, WHY IS TONY---" then I wrote this half-decently.)  
> \- If you knew this was gonna be a Clever Ruse, stay out of my head.  
> \- This chapter marks the 50,000 word mark for this series. If you've read and enjoyed my works, I love you and bestow the best of wishes on you and your kin. Join me on tumblr @heroscafe.
> 
> Join us next time on: the Avengers' Most Extra Plan!


	3. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we last left our heroes, most of the Avengers had faked their deaths, Coulson had identified their "bodies" in the morgue, the press was losing their minds, and Tony and Miles were hiding out in Quebec.
> 
> NB: This chapter has been edited, to make Miles' backstory less of a shitshow. Also changed some things for clarity. I forget you guys can't see inside my head. Thanks, Marty.

_**NEW YORK, PRESENTLY:** _

"It's been 24 hours since Captain America and nearly all of his fellow Avengers were gunned down this intersection in downtown Manhattan. Among the dead is Vice President Rhodes, who responded to reports of an emergency while travelling to meet with Latverian ambassadors—"

 _Click_.

"—unclear as to who this woman was, or where she came from, but some are saying that she looks like this unidentified woman who was seen in an apparent confrontation with the Avengers shortly before they had to be quarantined last summer. Details from that particular battle are still highly classified, according to SHIELD spokesman—"

 _Click_.

"—absolutely think she could be from Asgard, yes."

"That's a baseless conspiracy theory."

"Baseless conspiracy – I'm sorry, did you not see her throw that young woman?"

"Expert force calculations were unable to conclude—"

 _Click_.

"—is still missing after running away from the fight with the woman now being called The Sorceress. Some are saying—"

 _Click_.

"—a coward, and a deserter. You know what the punishment used to be for deserters?"

"I'm sorry, are you suggesting we use a firing squad on Tony Stark for evacuating his only surviving teammate?"

"Evacuating? That was running away."

"SHIELD has released a statement – "

"You think SHIELD can't lie, to do a little damage control for their golden boy?"

"He'd just watched all of his teammates die, and it's a well-known secret that he suffers from rather severe PTSD, taking that into account…"

Jane turned to Maria. "Can I see that controller?"

"Oh, sure," Maria said, and handed the TV remote to her.

Jane threw it across the room. It hit the ground with a clatter, since the open floorplan tragically prevented her from being able to chuck it at a wall. "There," she said. "That's better, don't you think?"

"You probably should've turned the TV off before you did that," Maria told her, over the sounds of MSNBC correspondents having a debate about whether PTSD episodes constituted cowardice or not.

The TV turned off. "I hope you don't mind," JARVIS said, "but I've taken the liberty of solving that for you."

"Not a problem," said Maria.

"Totally fine with that," Jane said.

_-_

_**ASGARD, PRESENTLY:** _

"Heimdall," Sif said.

Heimdall turned to her. Sif came to stand beside him.

"Can you see Thor?" She asked.

This was a ritual of theirs, albeit changed slightly. She often sought him out to ask after the welfare of her shield brother, but now greater tensions strained at her voice, at the movement of her weary bones. These were dangerous times.

He cast his gaze out. "Thor sits at the bedside of Loki. For many days, Loki has neither spoken nor stirred. The machines say he grows weak."

"And his mortal brothers in arm?"

"You have heard of their fate," he said.

"I wanted confirmation."

"Only two still walk in my sight; the bodies of the others are interred in a room of steel and ice."

"Only two," said Sif, with a little sigh.

He pretended not to know that it was relief, not exhaustion, which stirred her breath.

Only two of the warriors called the Avengers could be seen from the Eye. But for each body which laid on tables of steel, a new stranger walked the face of Midgard, their faces and truths not obscured but instead so unremarkable as to be unnoticed by any who had not watched Loki learn the illusion from his ward-mother and his wife alike.

Sif took her leave, and Heimdall turned his gaze again to those whom his gaze refused to see.

-

_**"THE BUS", APPROXIMATELY ONE DAY PREVIOUSLY:** _

"Do we all get new call-signs?" Steve asked.  _NOMAD_ , his read.

"You do indeed," said Coulson. "I'm distributing your equipment now."

"Redwing," Sam read off his tablet. "Sweet. I'm still a bird."

"I'm Chickenhawk, that seems a little unfair," said Clint.

"Poor baby," said Skye, now unofficially named Rising Tide, which she was a little smug about.

"Brown Recluse," smirked Natasha. "Are you still a spider?" She added to Peter.

"I'm Mayday," he said.

"I just get an alias, Dr. Bruce Bancroft," Bruce said.

"You're going to be an analyst with us," Simmons explained. Fitz looked fit to burst with excitement.

"We're…  _Grosbeak_  and Lightning Strike," said Wanda, gesturing to herself and Pietro. She typed something into her phone, and then her face lit up. "Oh! They're little red birds, Pejo, see?"

Bucky snorted as he read his own. "Look,  _Nomad_ , I'm Dodger."

"Like the team?"

"Guess some heartless bastard is gonna move me to the west coast."

"And I'm Patriot," Rhodey said, with relish. "So. When do we start?"

"I'm glad you asked," said Coulson.

-

_**IVUJIVIK, ONE DAY PREVIOUSLY:** _

"So," Tony said, and he flipped the gun around on the table and slid it across to Miles. "You take this. And the bullets."

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a drawstring velvet bag, which he eased open and set on the table. Miles picked it up and peered inside. The inner lining of the bag looked like satin, but it was gleaming in the fire's light unnaturally. And lying there in the fabric were two clips, black and solid and full of metal that glinted rainbow in the satin's reflection.

He picked up one of the clips and found it looked perfectly ordinary outside the bag. "So these…?"  _These can hurt Asgardians?_  He wanted to ask, but didn't.

"Are bullets," said Tony. "The wonderful thing about guns is that you can point them at someone – at anyone," and the 'anyone' was stressed.  _Not just Asgardians? And where had he gotten these?_  "And with basically no training and very little thought involved, kill them. Did I say wonderful? I meant terrible. They're kind of the same thing."

"Not really," he said, but he was too busy staring at the bullets. They looked so ordinary.

"This, Miles, is called a contingency plan," said Tony. "It's also called paranoia. But then, paranoia has kept me alive so far. Even when the entire team is brutally murdered by an alien sorceress. Plan for the worst case scenario."

"Aren't we a little past worst case scenario?" He said. It seemed excessive to find (build?) real magic bullets and bring them to a hidey hole during a faked disaster.

"I can think of thousands of ways this could get worse," he said, and his eyes were serious. "If everything goes to hell, you have a weapon."

Miles realized now why Tony had insisted on two people 'surviving'. Just in case something went wrong in the real way - not the Ocean's Eleven kind of way – he wanted to have backup.

 _Why me?_  He thought, but he couldn't exactly ask that while still tiptoeing around acknowledging the mission.

"Got it," he said instead, and set the gun on an end table and the clips in his pockets. "Now," he said, "you need to sleep."

Tony opened his mouth to argue.

"Don't," Miles advised.

"You ever considered a career in business? You remind me of my old CEO."

"Weird things happen to Stark Industries CEO's," Miles winced the minute the words left his mouth. "Pretend I didn't say that."

Howard Stark, CEO. Dead.

Obediah Stane, CEO. Dead.

Tony Stark, CEO. Kidnapped.

Pepper Potts, CEO. Subject of illegal human experimentation.

Although that last one probably wasn't common knowledge. He'd gotten a classified brief on President Potts.

But Tony seemed relatively unconcerned, though Miles was pretty sure he was acting. "Maria is an exception, but she was Assistant Director of SHIELD, that's a lifetime supply of weird."

"Fucking SHIELD," Miles sighed.

"Thank fuck, someone agrees."

-

_**SHIELD BASE PELICAN, PRESENTLY:** _

FROM: JEMMA SIMMONS  
TO: JANE FOSTER  
Our friend Natalie wants to know if this necklace works with her outfit.  
[ATTACHMENT - 143 MB]

FROM: JANE FOSTER  
TO: JEMMA SIMMONS  
I say it does. Sif agrees.

FROM: JEMMA SIMMONS  
TO: JANE FOSTER  
Well, if the Lady Sif agrees, I'd call that confirmation.

FROM: JANE FOSTER  
TO: JEMMA SIMMONS  
100% confirmed by reputable sources. The necklace works great.

FROM: JEMMA SIMMONS  
TO: JANE FOSTER  
She was worried it might accentuate what isn't there, is that the case?

FROM: JANE FOSTER  
TO: JEMMA SIMMONS  
No, it's seamless. Your eyes just sort of drift over it, but it looks perfectly complete.

FROM: JEMMA SIMMONS  
TO: JANE FOSTER  
I'll let her know.

"We've got independent verification, they work," said Natasha. She tapped at the amulet strung around her neck with the hand that wasn't holding Jemma's phone. She kept typing a message to Phil without looking down at the screen.

Jemma beamed.

"Hopefully Fitz doesn't message you anything embarrassing while she has that," Skye teased.

Jemma went a bit pink at the innuendo-laden tone, but didn't grab for the phone back. "If she wanted to know what Leo and I text about, she has less obvious ways of finding out," she said.

"So there  _is_  something to see?" Asked Skye.

"Ooh, boy talk," said Clint. "Out with it, Jemma."

She lifted her chin. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell," she said primly. Natasha passed the phone back to her, and she took it.

"Definitely something to tell, then," Clint said to Skye.

"Don't you have anything better to do than harass other recruits,  _Chickenhawk_?" Natasha asked Clint.

"Hush, Brown Recluse. Jemma was about to tell us what she and Leo text about when he's off in Greenland or wherever base it is he's at."

With a little sigh, Jemma conceded. "All right," she said. "We were actually messaging just last night about something that's  _really_  quite exciting – and stop me if this is too much information, I'm not usually one for this sort of thing," she added.

Skye and Clint were both leaning forward. "No, no, go on," said Skye, when Jemma paused.

"Well, we've been talking for a while about nanoscale indentation of polymeric surface, and whether nanostructure miniatures could be used for biometric applications—"

Both of them groaned and sat back in their seats.

"I don't know why you think that we're exchanging torrid love notes via text message, Skye," Jemma said.

Clint, meanwhile, looked at Natasha. "You taught her that."

"Of course I did," she said. "Deliberate misinterpretation of leading questions is one of the best ways to derail someone who is fishing for information. Especially when the misinterpretation seems sincere."

"I'm so bored," said Skye. "I haven't been allowed to leave since we got here, I can't see my girlfriend, I can't go on social media, it's like house arrest, but  _worse_."

"Well, I don't know how  _interesting_  it will be," interrupted a flat voice. Everyone but Natasha startled a little and turned to look at May. "Skye, you're low profile enough to be able to go out in public, so pick out a wig from the disguise department, we'll have you do a quick recon trip on your way to rendezvous with Nomad."

"I'm working with Nomad?"

"Nomad and Mayday. By request of the Director," May added, with a little quirk of her lips that plainly expressed how obvious Phil was being, to get Skye back under his command again so he could keep an eye on her.

-

_**ASGARD, THREE MONTHS PREVIOUSLY:** _

Thor knew something was wrong the moment the Foster-Banner Portal closed behind them. Natasha frowned, watching the way he tensed. "Thor?" She asked.

"Loki," he breathed. "Natasha, go to the throne room and ask to speak to the king. Distract them as long as you can."

"You'll get at least ten minutes," said Natasha.

"Thank you."                                            

She watched him stride off, noting which way he went, and then made a beeline for the throne room. The guards tried to stop her, just the two of them, and Natasha rolled her eyes. "Lay a hand on me, and I'll cut it off," she told the nearest one.

"She's a human," hissed the other. "She must have come here with Thor."

They stepped aside, and she pushed her way into the great hall. When they didn't follow her, she smirked. "You're going to leave me alone in here?" She asked. "One certainly hopes I'm not an enemy of Asgard."

With a shared glance, they came in after her. Even from at least 50 yards, she could tell the man on the throne wasn't Loki. Given Thor's behavior, she wasn't surprised.

"Do we have the pleasure of welcoming the Lady Jane?" asked the man on the throne, as Natasha approached.

"I am Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, a member of the Avengers and a diplomatic representative of Earth. Thor sent me. And who is my host today?"

"I am Baldur Odinson, the King of Asgard."

She cast her gaze over his platinum blond hair, his flawless features and warm honey eyes, his white and gold finery. He wore a crown in addition to the sceptor, something not even Loki had ever worn. She arched her eyebrows. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Pardon?" Baldur said.

Natasha tilted her head to the side, eyes wide widening innocently. "I hadn't realised the grieving colour of Asgard were white instead of black. Nor was it known to us that Asgard was in a state of mourning for a fallen king. Where may I pay my respects to your brother?"

Colour drained from his face, and he stood up. "Your mockery has no place in the court of Asgard."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Natasha, in a sweet voice. "News travels slowly across the realms, you see, and last any of Earth knew, Loki, brother of Thor, was king of Asgard. Hereditary monarchies on Earth work so that the next in line only ascends to the throne when the last king is dead."

"Loki has no claim to the throne," snarled Baldur.

Natasha blinked at him like she didn't understand, although she did note the present tense – Loki was alive, then. She wasn't necessarily happy about that, but she was relieved. "Does Asgard not permit the king to appoint himself an heir, should he not have children?"

"Odin did have children, and I am one of them."

"I was referring to Thor," she said. "When Odin relinquished the throne, it was to Thor. Thor named Loki his heir, and then relinquished the throne. Like it or not, by the rules of your people, Loki is the rightful king."

"I am the son of Odin! Not Loki!"

"Huh," said Natasha, tapping her chin like she was thinking. "I figured Asgard would have similar rules to ancient Earth when it came to illegitimate children."

Baldur's face went stony. "Arrest her," he ordered.

"By all means," said Natasha, smirking around at the guards who was starting to approach. "Earth has been quiet lately. I'd like a sparring opponent I can actually let loose on."

They hesitated. Two of them exchanged looks, half incredulous, half concerned.  _Is she bluffing, or does she have a trick up her sleeves?_  She could almost hear them thinking it.

The doors to the Hall burst open, and Natasha's smirk grew to epic proportions at the crackle of static electricity and the booming, "Where is my brother and his sons?"

"Loki's alive," Natasha reported. "As for the twins..."

Even Thor could read it on Baldur's face. "What have you DONE?" He roared. It was an impressive roar, one that shook the room, but Baldur's hand had twitched meaningfully, and a man in a strange, gleaming helmet had moved at the signal. She ran a calculation on the number of men a castle like this could sustain as a standing fighting force, and didn't like the odds—even if three-quarters stayed their hands at the sight of Thor, which was a generous estimate. Abdicating to Loki and staying on Earth could not have been a popular decision.

"Thor," Natasha said, as more guards poured into the room. She didn't have enough intel to make an estimate on how long it would take for escape to become impossible to escape, should Thor sufficiently piss off their host, if that rate of reinforcement continued. "Thor, it's useless. We have to go."

Thor glared fiercely at his half-brother, but lowered Mjolnir.

"Listen to the woman, brother," urged Baldur. "This is madness."

Natasha laid a hand on Thor's arm. "I'm not saying we can't fight this battle," she whispered. "But we can't win this fight alone."

-

_**SHIELD BASE BANNERMAN, PRESENTLY:** _

Phil hugged Skye as soon as he could without it being too obvious that he'd been more unsettled by the wax corpses than he wanted to admit, but judging by the sidelong looks Tripp was giving him, he wasn't especially subtle. When he let her go, she patted him on the shoulder briefly before turning to Rhodes.

"May wants you to call her," she reported. "Actually, what she said was, 'if he wants to contact me, my number is in the directory', by which she means,  _tell him to use the secure SHIELD phone I personally issued him and call me already, because I miss him_."

"That seems like a loose interpretation of meaning," Phil observed.

Skye shook her head. "No, DC, it's 100% accurate. He's already itching to call her."

Rhodes did, in fact, seem suddenly a little more antsy than usual.

"Let's get you settled in," he suggested, rather than address that. "Then you have a mission report to write on the recon."

"Yay, paperwork," she muttered.

Phil hadn't even let the door close behind Skye before Rhodes was digging in his pocket for his phone. Meanwhile Clint had already started texting him pictures from the other bunker. Between a picture of Wanda trying on different disguises and of Sam with Natasha doing a handstand on his shoulders, Clint had messaged HOW DO I MAKE NEW SNAPCHAT ACCT??????!

"I'm putting you in charge of keeping an eye on the other two," he said. Peter was pretty mellow, but Pietro was nineteen and the kind of reckless that only comes from being young, although maybe the superpowers contributed to it.

"Funny, Grosbeak said the same thing. Weird, not being the rookie anymore. Not that I'm complaining."

"You've come a long way in the past three years," he said. "I'm proud of you."

"You know who you should really be proud of?" Skye deflected. "Antoine. Leo says he talked Selvig down after a fit, and Katie says he helped her out too. Probably about Miles. She's been his liaison since the start, and the PR mess got to her."

"I've seen Breitbart's latest," Phil said, grimacing.

"He taught her what Fitz assures me is the usual SHIELD brand of ping pong so they could blow off steam without weapons."

"Wouldn't want to spook Dr. Bancroft," he said. "This is your bunk, it's—"

Skye held the door shut. "Director," she said, in the tone that means  _Dad_ , "You sent for me, all the way from California. That means something has you freaked out enough to want me under your personal supervision. What's going on?"

He sighed. "We're in a dangerous line of work."

"We always are. Is there something – is Operation Astolat compromised?"

"No, no," he hastened to say.

"Then what?"

"If it were just a matter of your safety overall, I'd have left you with May. She can take care of you, while I do the cat-herding." Skye rolled her eyes, probably at the idea of needing protection, but didn't interrupt him. "I had to go to the morgue. To identify the bodies."

 _The wax body that looked like you_ , he didn't say.

Skye rocked back on her heels. "Right," she said. "Right,  _shit_ , I didn't even think—"

"You're okay, and that's all that matters. I just wanted you around."

"Thanks, D—Director. Don't worry; I'll make sure you're regretting that in a few days' time."

"Business as usual, then," he said wryly, and she laughed.

-

_**IVUJIVIK, PRESENTLY:** _

"Tony. Tony, wake up."

Miles dodged the flail of a fist, thankfully slowed by sleep and a not-negligible amount of bedding, and peered back down at him to find alert eyes and an apologetic frown looking back. "Shit," said Tony. "Shit, I'm sorry, I—I didn't get you?"

"Nah. You're under so many blankets, probably wouldn't have even noticed it anyway."

"Ha," said Tony. He sounded pretty rough; Miles guessed the nightmares were hitting him hard.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Fuck, no."

He didn't usually manage to identify with Tony Stark – considering he was  _Tony Stark_  and Miles was a broke black college student – but that was pretty relatable. "All right. Let's try to get back to sleep, then?"

"You're a good kid," said Tony, after a long silence where they both failed to actually go back to sleep.

Miles shrugged the praise off uncomfortably. "This is kind of extenuating circumstances."

"I'm serious," Tony said, and sat up. His numerous blankets slipped off his shoulders, and in the landslide of blankets, he looked small. He was still smaller than Miles, but he seemed larger than life most of the time. This wasn't most of the time. "You're a little younger than I'd prefer to see out fighting the forces of evil – "

"I'm twenty two."

"But you are a good dude. A good guy. None of this toeing the line of the moral event horizon. Unambiguous."

Miles choked on a laugh. "You haven't read my SHIELD dossier, have you?"

"Sure I have. Coulson sent me it. You were unlucky enough to have a family friend who fancied himself a scientist, you tripped over a spider incubating mutations, kept it a secret, kept your head down, ultimately showed up at a fight to provide backup to Parker when Zappy Man tried to kick start a power grid overflow. Then SHIELD showed up."

"Electro," Miles corrected. "It's – it's a little more complicated than that. I got bitten three years ago now. I didn't help Peter until after Hydra. I could have..." he made a hand gesture. "I could have saved people. And I killed my uncle."

"Your uncle, huh?" Tony said. "Was it an accident, or did he do something wrong?"

"Both. No, it doesn't matter, I killed him."

"I killed a lot of people. Directly and indirectly. Failed to save even more. Lots of them didn't deserve it. You old enough to remember Blackwater?"

"A little."

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes, and Miles couldn't help but remember his very publicly televised nervous breakdowns. Plural. Miles has had a shitty life (fuck you very much, radioactive spider), but he didn't have it on the front page of every tabloid. Small mercies.

"I sold them the guns they used in the massacre. Paramilitary group, with Stark weapons, at a discounted rate for a family friend. I think I wingmanned Kissinger once. I helped build every major terror organization in the world, through shameless war mongering. My kill count? Higher than Loki. Higher than Natasha. Whatever you think you did, kid, I did worse, with a chaser."

"I didn't want this. The power, the responsibility, none of this whole superhero part and parcel. Even before I got bitten – after the Battle of New York, everyone wanted to be an Avenger. Halloween was already all Iron Man and Sexy Iron Women costumes, but then there were guys showing off their biceps in Thor costumes, and I think half the wrestling team wound up hospitalized because they used the wrong green paint. English classes kept doing those 'personal hero' essays, and everyone picked you or Steve Rogers or 'the girl Avenger'."

Tony was watching him closely. "Who did you do yours on?"

"My parents," he said.

"I always did Leonard Nimoy," said Tony. Then he focused again. "So, a fanboy you were not."

"And then I got bitten." Miles sighed. He drummed his fingers on the table. "Not a part of my five year plan."

"What was the five year plan?"

"CUNY for undergrad, then MIT or Harvard. Would've taken Stanford, maybe Berkley."

"Law?"

"Business," Miles corrected.

"You sure you don't want to be my CEO?"

"You have a CEO. She's terrifying. I'm not stealing her job."

Miles tried to picture how he could even attempt to steal a job from Maria Hill, and came up blank. And with an image of her crushing his skull with her bare hands.

"Fair," said Tony. "Well, then, what happened?"

"My uncle happened. Thought he might as well use me, since I'd made myself the lab rat. Kid in my sophomore English class dropped dead of an overdose. Whole school of kids, most of them with more money than parental supervision – no offense – the cartel started targeting them as buyers. Not weed, hard stuff, cut with harder. You know, you went to party school."

"I went to MIT."

Miles fixed him with his most unimpressed look. "A party school. Anyway, my uncle said—he played me. 'Where's your _compassion_ , Miles?' 'These are bad guys we're talking about.'"

"'You're saving more lives by doing this'," Tony said, which was almost verbatim. " _Stark weapons save lives_. I know the spiel."

"I don't like fighting," said Miles. "I wanted some goddamn peace, but he wouldn't let me leave, he threatened to tell my folks, he grabbed my arm, I pulled away, and. He fell, hit some kind of weapon that just... went off.

"SHIELD left me their card after Electro. I called them - I couldn't tell the cops what had happened, they'd have never believed me, probably would've thrown me in jail or just shot me, so SHIELD was my only chance. Agent May showed up, brought me to Phil Coulson while the other agents cleaned up, framed the cartel for my uncle's murder to bring them down."

"And Coulson gave you a rousing speech?"

Miles laughed again, still rough and quiet. "Yeah," he said. "And now I'm here."

"In the middle of nowhere," said Tony.

"With no team," Miles agreed.

"And thousands of enemies, raising their ugly heads at the sudden opportunity to strike while the iron is hot."

"SHIELD," Miles sighed.

"SHIELD," said Tony.

-

_**HELSINKI, PRESENTLY:** _

"I don't like fighting without my shield," Steve said. "I want that noted."

"You get to punch more Nazis, though, and throw things a little less," Skye pointed out.

"Actually I'm mostly just shooting them now. Been a while since basic, but I think I'm doing pretty well."

"Stop bragging, you're a national icon," Peter complained.

"Peter is just upset because Steve shot more Nazis than him."

"Nomad, Mayday, Rising Tide, stay off the comms unless it's official business."

"Ugh," said Skye.

"I'd like to lodge an official business complaint that Steve tries too hard and it makes us ordinary mortals look bad," Peter griped.

"Ordinary mortals," Coulson said. "Really?"

Peter looked at Skye - who was only half human and hadn't needed a stunt double to survive being tossed into a concrete wall by an overpowered alien lady - and then at his own hands and wrists, which were currently banned from creating web on account of it being kind of obvious. While Baldur and Heimdall couldn't really see his webbing, if a civilian found it there might be questions. Especially since people generally forgot Miles a) existed and b) had the same powers as him.

"Ordinary ish," Peter amended. There was muffled laughter from Skye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu @ heroscafe on tunglr dot hell


	4. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time on Asgardian Politics 101, we had a post-mass murder media circuit about whether everything is Tony Stark's fault; Miles and Tony had some good ol' our-lives-are-fucked-up bonding; the "dead" Avengers settled into temporary positions in SHIELD; and Heimdall knows more than he's letting on. Now:

**_STARK TOWER, TWO MONTHS PREVIOUSLY:_ **

"Tell me what happened," Sam prompted.

"Baldur arrived not long after Thor abdicated," she said. "He said he was waiting for Odin to be gone. He  had attempted before, but was rejected. Odin denied his parentage."

"Loki sympathized," Sam surmised.

"It was not sympathy, exactly, which guided his hand, though I suppose that was Baldur's intention. He thought mainly of proving himself not to be as his father was."

"Of course," Thor said quietly.

"In some ways, Baldur's arrival was a good thing. Loki became resolute in his role as a father. I think, when forced to confront someone who had never been accepted into the arms of his kin, he came to see how he was following his father's footsteps, in a way. He sent for his children by Angrboda and brought Sleipnir from the ward-house, and for a time we lived together, the three of us and the children. Hel didn't much care for the court, who shunned her, and I rather felt the same. We spent our time secluded from all but closest kin, and for it, Hel seemed much improved."

"Loki and Frigga were much the same way," Thor said.

The small, tired smile slipped from Sigyn's face. "He saw her in me. I cannot say I was offended by the comparison, but it did seem to bother him. The more he saw of her - to say nothing of the grief and guilt - in me, the more he cast himself as Odin in his own mind. He tried to devote his spare time to a different child every night, with a seventh night for other cares.

"I was so pleased. So relieved. I scarcely noticed the goings-on of the court. And it was in this way that Baldur was able to carry out his machinations."

"How'd he do it?"

"There were those in the court who did not want a Frost Giant on the throne."

"Especially one with a checkered past like Loki?"

"They care little for his deeds or misdeeds. You must understand, Samuel, on Asgard, crimes like Loki's are... not common, but nothing so grievous as they are here."

"Mass murder isn't a major crime?" Sam said, before he could stop himself.

"Of humans? It's... perhaps the nearest analogue would be animal cruelty," and Sigyn. "And imprisonment is, for Asgardians, possibly even more of a punishment. Odin's ruling was seen as quite stern. Putting someone like Loki in a cell - somewhat lavish by the austere standards of the prisons of this country - is more akin to being placed in a dog cage, and perhaps also like having one's wings clipped."

"Loki would have been released by now regardless, were his crimes merely the killing of your fellow Midgardians," said Thor.

Sam sighed. "Charming. He had more crimes?"

"Wielding the staff – " Thor began.

"A selective crime, to be sure," Sigyn muttered.

" – and the cube," he finished, with a sideways glance at Sigyn.

Sigyn's face twisted. "Odin has never liked other people playing with his toys, or worse, finding better toys than his," she said.

"Sigyn," Thor tried.

"Am I wrong?" She challenged. This was definitely not going to stay on track at this rate.

Thor looked exhausted. "My father is not a perfect man."

"Okay, so, sorry state of criminal justice on Asgard aside—are we talking about a coup, here?" Sam asked.

"More like a massacre," said Sigyn. "They came for the children in the dead of night, used threats to their wellbeing to control us. And then they tore us away from each other, scattered the children across the galaxy, and hid them from me."

"You think they're alive?" _The surviving ones_ , he didn't say. Sigyn's expression was brittle, and trauma did funny things to people – as reasonable as Sigyn had always been, Nari's death could set her off into the kind of tailspin he didn't need from a superpowered sorceress.

But Sigyn's anger seemed to sap away at the question. "They're alive," she said. "I know they are."

Thor didn't look quite so certain, but he did say, "They're more useful to him alive."

Sam sighed. Five missing kids, the niece and nephews of an Avenger, scattered across space. This could only go poorly.

-

**_IVUJIVIK, PRESENTLY:_ **

Tony Stark wasn't the nurturing type. But he could be reasonably certain that, you know, he wasn't supposed to let the kid suffer in silence.

"You need another layer?"

"I am a human burrito, if burritos had fifty layers," said Miles. "I do not need any more layers. I'd be the first person to die of hyperthermia at this longitude."

"Then why are you fidgeting?"

"I think fidgeting is pretty understandable under the circumstances!"

"Of course it is," Tony said. "But you're only freaking out now, and it's been almost a day."

"I don't understand why we have to _wait_ ," he snapped. "She didn't exactly stick around to see if SHIELD could rustle up a weapon that could kill her, did she? She must've left town."

"If we go back to New York now, we'll be mobbed by reporters. You know that." _What's this really about?_

"There's not really any going back, is there?"

Tony hesitated. He thought about what Miles was really asking. _How can things go back to the way they were when we've faked our deaths? The Avengers are never going to be trusted the way they were before._

It's something Tony had considered himself, a part of the simulation on possible outcomes.

He wants to say, _I'm a futurist, Miles. And as scary as the world is going to be when (if) we come home after ensuring a regime change on an alien planet, having faked our deaths, it's nothing compared to what the world looks like if war comes and we don't have an ally on Asgard_.

Instead, he says, "Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war."

"Don't patronize me, Stark."

"I'm not. I wish someone had told me that. I never learned to lose with any grace. Now every time I'm facing a loss, it's like I'm in freefall from a sixty foot cliff, breaking my fall on rocks. There's never going to be an easy answer. And the answer to, _where do we go from here?_ Well, that one's going to be the hardest one of all."

"Just… tell me you have a plan."

"I always have a plan. And even when I don't, someone else does. And trust me, kid. There's a plan for this."

-

**_STARK TOWER, ONE MONTH PREVIOUSLY:_ **

"I want my children back," Iarnvidia said.

Sigyn looked up at her with sunken, tired eyes. "There is nothing we can do. Loki is at death's door, I am - my strength is diminished, my sons torn from me, and you are alone."

"You're not alone," said Jane, and the women startled, turning to her. "You have me, and you have Thor. And we can ask the others."

"Loki has committed numerous crimes against Midgard," said Sigyn. "When I sent him to seek Thor's forgiveness, he was given license to exist unhindered and little more, and I do not deny that there is mercy in that alone. And then Thor bid you all to rescue us from our imprisonment. To help him further---"

"This isn't about Loki," said Jane. "Sigyn. Even if Loki weren't Thor's brother, your children haven't done anything."

Iarnvidia looked askance at her. "And my children, they will not be punished for my actions?"

"First of all, we pretend The Incident never happened, and it's suiting us pretty well so far," said Jane. She paused. "Everyone here needs so much therapy. But we don't want your kids to wind up getting hurt."

"Baldur will be watching us," said Sigyn.

Jane smiled.

Iarnvidia decided she liked this small, delicate mortal's smile. It was just sharp enough to mean good things.

-

**_UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, ONE MONTH PREVIOUSLY:_ **

"Why are we meeting in a dark tunnel under the tower instead of one of the numerous meeting rooms?" Asked Sam.

"I'm so glad you asked that," said Tony, and did his best showman's wave. "Welcome to the Thunder Dome. It's carefully calibrated to keep Sparky's friends from spying on us."

"It's not a dome," said Clint.

"And there's no thunder," added Sam.

Steve snorted. "Anti Alien Surveillance Tunnel isn't catchy enough for him."

"No one appreciates my genius," said Tony. "Or Jane's, since she calibrated it."

"Oh, Jane helped? Then it's cool," said Sam. He turned to Jane. "Don't let him name things."

"ANYWAY," said Tony. "Jane has something she wants to request of all of you."

All eyes were now firmly on Jane.

"Uh," she said. "Well. First of all, I'm sorry Thor isn't here."

"He's busy sitting at the bedside of the friendly neighborhood mass murderer," said Skye. "What? It's useful to hear out loud how messed up our lives are. So, what about the quasi-formerly evil mastermind sitting in a hospital bed upstairs?"

"I'm so glad the new era of SHIELD has really upheld the tradition of mocking our life choices, I was really worried it would disappear when Hill joined SI and Fury ran off to work on his tan."

Skye looked at him. "Make better life choices," she told him.

"You are so much like your father, it's disturbing."

Skye looked pleased, and Jane cleared her throat. "This isn't really about Loki," she said. "It's about Baldur. And, more importantly, it's about Sigyn."

"They want to rescue the other children," said Sam.

"How many children does Loki have, exactly?" Skye asked.

"Six," said Jane, and then shook her head. "Five, now."

"We can't do a traditional rescue by any means," Tony said. "If Baldur sees us, we're gonna be at war with Asgard. And Pep has a strict no intergalactic wars policy. So we have to be sneaky."

"You want us to risk intergalactic war with a bunch of gods just to rescue the children of a guy who murdered Phil, enslaved me, and killed something like 115 people?" Clint asked. "After we saved his ass, after his second wife cursed us, after everything, you want us to help him?"

Jane hesitated. "Think of it as helping Thor."

"Thor still considers the guy his brother."

Everyone looked at each other. Sam could see them all regretting not bringing Natasha back from the field for this conversation.

"Clint," Steve said.

"Not saying I'm not gonna help. I'm just making sure everyone understands exactly where we stand, here."

"What's the call, Clint?" Sam asked, and caught his eyes.

Clint looked grateful, maybe for the hand on his shoulder, maybe for Sam putting the choice in his hands, maybe just for the appearance of a choice. Sam harbored no illusions; the others would do what they thought was right without Clint's blessing. But that just meant Sam was free to choose to follow Clint without leaving five alien kids to die, secure in the knowledge that the other Avengers would handle it.

"Cap's leader, Tony's bankrolling the whole operation, what I think doesn't matter."

Steve opened his mouth. Sam held up a finger to stay him.

"We're not just Thor's team, we're yours too. Loki fucked you over pretty bad, and you've already done so much more to help him than he probably deserves. You say you walk, that's fine. You want me to walk too, that's fine too. Can't speak for the others, but you do not have to risk your life doing that guy's bidding ever again."

"Fuck Loki," he said. "But I know what it's like to have a shit dad."

"You're in?"

"I'm in."

-

**_QUEENSLAND, PRESENTLY:_ **

"How goes it, Flock?" Natasha asked.

Sam groaned. "That joke wasn't funny the first fourteen times, why would it be funny now?"

"Callback," she said. "Also Chickenhawk once called me, Spider-Man, and Arachnid Kid, quote, an exterminator's worst nightmare."

 _I said MISS MUFFET'S worst nightmare,_ Clint signed.

Wanda laughed. "That is not much better, Chickenhawk."

"Anyway, I'm mission control, I get to say what your mission group call sign is, and I say it's The Flock. Chickenhawk, bogey on your six."

Wanda looked back in time to see an arrow take down a predator drone.

"I really hate drones," said Wanda. "Americans, you do not know what it is like, to be watching the news, seeing these things come into being, living in places still recovering from the Cold War, entire generations of violence. And then they say, we can fly halfway around the world without a pilot and kill targets with the press of a button, and how can you ever relax?"

"Well," Sam said, "that is definitely a sobering reminder of the West's many failings. Mission control?"

Natasha sounded amused. "What am I supposed to comment on, the mission or the Central-Eastern European perspective on geopolitics?"

"Either."

"I think the most immediate solution to all the problems at hand is to find the radical nationalist xenophobes running the predatory drones and punch them repeatedly. We'll explore longterm options later, shall we?"

"Agreed," said Sam. "I have eyes on the enemy. Looks like two flesh and blood assholes. Any advice, mission control?"

"You can start by helping me with this lock," Wanda gritted out. "I'm trying to dupe it with magic but - "

"Move a half step to your right and cover your ears," said Sam.

She stepped aside, and Sam shot the lock.

"That's not very subtle, Redwing."

"Chickenhawk's about to shoot two people, I figured the element of surprise was gone."

Clint cleared his throat. Sam looked aside, following Wanda and Clint's gazes to where two unconscious men were neatly laid out, having been incapacitated in silence.

" _Really_? Of all the times to start being subtle - "

Wanda side-stepped the first handful of homicidal nationalists who rushed the door, and then threw the door shut, knocking the last one to the ground and shooting him with the night-night dart.

Sam punched another man's lights out before he could get his gun up. "I hate being grounded," he said, and then pulled a face. "That sounded so junior high, I swear I just astral projected back to being fourteen."

Clint made a somewhat rude hand gesture implying some things Sam might've been up to at fourteen, and Wanda laughed.

"Shut up, Grosbeak," said Sam.

-

**_TWO YEARS, TWO MONTHS PREVIOUS, ASGARD:_ **

Sigyn brought Loki back to Asgard once she was fully satisfied that he had begun to mend bridges with Thor and his Midgardian ilk. Just in the short weeks he was gone, Nari and Vali had grown, just enough that Nari could reach the shelves in the kitchens if he stood on his tiptoes, and Vali could no longer squeeze his entire, lanky frame into his favorite hiding spot.

Loki kept expecting them to act like he and Thor had, but neither are more similar to him or Thor than the other. Nor did they seem inclined to compete with one another the way he and Thor had.

He set about avoiding Sigyn the moment he returned; she was radiating smugness that irritated him beyond end. Luckily, he had plausible reason to be rid of her company: he needed to return to playing at being Odin, now.

Beginning with relieving his temporary replacement.

Sif had taken to ruling well, leaving the court in perfect order and more than a few of Loki’s advisers with a newfound fear of her wrath, but she heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing Loki, now once more in Odin’s guise.

He did his best to resent her for the fact that she would never react that way to his true visage. But he couldn't muster up the anger.

“My lord,” she said. “I have kept Asgard safe in your absence. May I be excused to spar with the Warriors Three?”

 _Of course_. Offer her all the power there is to be had in Asgard, and she wants nothing more than to best Fandral in mock-battle.

“Certainly,” said Loki. Was he being too magnanimous to be convincing? He wasn't sure. But Odin wouldn't hesitate to reclaim the throne either, would he?

Sif hesitated. “Did… did you visit him?” She asked.

“Yes,” Loki said, before he could stop himself. “I visited Thor. He wishes you and his other friends here well, but he will not return to us.”

There was a pause. Then, “His human friends and Jane…”

“They still reside together in the Man of Iron’s tower. Jane has been building a portal to replace the Bifrost. Thor has found several sparring partners capable of matching his strength and skill. He is… happy,” Loki couldn’t stop the twist of his mouth into a scowl, but Sif didn’t seem to find it odd.

“That is good to hear,” she said.

She sounded conflicted, as if her thoughts were at war. Loki knew the feeling well.

“I know,” said Loki, before he could stop himself, “that it was Frigga’s wish that you become Thor’s queen.”

Frigga had asked him to keep an eye on Thor and Sif, to see if there was any romance blooming there. But Thor’s relationship with Sif, beautiful as she was, never differed from the one he had with the Warriors Three. Thor’s affections had remained mostly directed toward himself, until this Jane had instilled some humility in him.

Sif looked at him with a perfectly schooled expression. “Was it?”

“She trusted you. Whenever I visit my son, or travel for other reasons, can I trust that you will keep my kingdom safe in my absence?”

Odin had never left Asgard for very long. It simply was not done. Rumors would be spreading, and Loki could not have anyone digging too deeply.

“Yes,” said Sif automatically. “Always.”

She still looked unsettled; Loki needed to draw her away from that, to ground something else in her mind, lest perturbation become curiosity.

“These halls are filled with memories of her,” he said, looking away, as if remembering Frigga sweeping through the long corridors or sitting alongside the throne.

The best lies are often truths.

-

**_SOMEWHERE ABOVE THE ATLANTIC, PRESENTLY:_ **

Sometimes, Pietro reflected, as the plane was in hurtled downwards at what he considered a leisurely pace, the real problem was how slow everyone else was. If only because arguments dragged on and on into valuable problem-solving time, when they could be finding a way to fix the problems caused by an improvised antiaircraft gun, a flock of geese, and a group formed through the unholy union of a Hydra cell and an offshoot of the Ten Rings.

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE FOREMOST TACTICAL MIND OF THE CENTURY," Bucky yelled.

"You forget to account for geese one time and suddenly—"

"To be fair, geese are a major factor in air battles," said Pietro.

"—not a barrel roll, Patriot, not a barrel roll!" Steve yelped, even though Rhodey was already steering into a roll.

"I only have a wing and a half, Nomad, my options are limited," he said.

"Do you think I can match speed against the opposite force of the air over the plane?" Pietro asked.

There was a pause.

"The _real_ question is, how quickly can you build a replacement wing?" Steve asked.

"You are not seriously considering sending a teenager outside the plane," Bucky said.

Rhodey gritted out, "Less than three minutes until we crash. Projecting intercept with the coast of Newfoundland."

Pietro ran to the back of the plane, found the flight manual, read the schematics, and studied the schematics of the plane. There were even handy measurements for the breadth and depth of the wing, with indicators of where the support structures were. He dug through the cargo, pulling out the supplies originally meant to build a missile silo.

"I could probably look over the plane schematics in this flight manual and approximate a second wing in under a minute, if I had a welding torch," said Pietro. "Is there a way to jury rig a welding torch?"

Bucky detached his arm and tossed it to Pietro, who looked up with wide eyes. One of the metal fingers seemed to have been replaced by the tip of a welding torch. "Switch's on the wrist," he said.

He had so many questions, and not enough time to ask and have them answered. Instead, he set to work.

"I'll be damned," Bucky said, a few seconds later, when Pietro tossed him back his arm. "Let's get this hatch open."

Pietro grinned.

-

**_TWO MONTHS PREVIOUSLY, STARK TOWER:_ **

Loki woke up.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

He had heard tales of warriors who awoke disoriented, unsure of what had befallen them that led to their waking up in the bed of a healer, or (in ballads), the bed of a beautiful maiden who had come to their aid. It was just his luck that he'd remember everything.

Nari was dead.

The person at his bedside was absolutely silent, and he was too tired for his usual tricks, limited to baser senses like sight and intuition. _Is this how mortals always perceive their world?_ But he wasn't so far gone as to not know when he wasn't alone. And he only knew one mortal who could still herself so completely as to be more shadow than creature.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "This isn't so familiar as one might expect," he said.

Loki thought of the last time she sat down and pricked his skin with her heavy gaze, on a flying stronghold. It seemed like a lifetime ago. War had made strange bedfellows indeed; then, he had been so sure that the mortals would succeed where others had failed, and send him to the realm of the dead. Now they were the only thing keeping him alive.

"I really am here as a balm," she said.

Rolling his eyes would take too much strength, so he just moved them enough to actually look at her. Her lips twitched.

"Do you remember the last time you woke up?" She asked.

He did. He remembered the Hulk – or rather, his innocuous human keeper – and a too-gentle voice saying _sorry for your loss_. He also remembered how the gesture of sympathy had turned his stomach. He almost preferred the monster to the man, despite the imminent risk to his person that the monster presented. Not that he could be much worse off, now.

Loki wet his lips.

"Sigyn," he said.

"Sleeping," said the Widow. "She'll tell us what happened when she's in a more stable condition, but you may be needed to fill in the blanks."

There was a hard edge to her voice, just beneath the surface. It was a relief, to be met with cold steel instead of soft hands. This was a slow-aching misery, worsened by kindness, and he yearned for her to flay him open to his core with her words like he knew she could. "You think I deserved this," he said.

"Yes."

Vali – or rather, the beast he'd been turned into – had looked up at him with a muzzle wet with blood. His eyes had been mindless, utterly devoid of the boy Loki had known, just vacant ferocity and jagged teeth red with the blood of his brother. Sigyn had screamed. It was an awful scream, the likes of which he had never heard, and especially not from her.

"No one deserves this," he said.

"We do."

 _We_. She believed that, however foolishly.

"Then why bother?" He asked.

He hadn't dared tell Sigyn, but the times when she could no longer shield him from the dripping venom had been the most bearable. Searing pain at least had the happier side effect of distraction.

It was the times between when his mind was filled only with thoughts of his children.

" _They_ didn't deserve it," Natasha said, and her face swam into view as she leaned over him, but darkness was encroaching on the edge of his vision.

-

**_UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, TWO WEEKS AGO:_ **

"The hardest part of this op will be keeping anyone who knows the truth from making a smartass remark about it," Natasha observed.

"It's literally killing me and it's only been like an hour," confirmed Fitz. "The paramedics had the radio on. One of your dreadful conservative talk show hosts was using your apparent deaths in order to stump for what seemed like completely unrelated political issues."

"Hannity?" Steve asked.

"No."

"Limbaugh?" Said Rhodey.

"Savage?" Natasha added.

Skye grinned, seeing Fitz growing more frustrated at the endless list of possible hosts. "Beck?" She suggested.

"No, no, no," said Fitz. "You know, you lot almost make English politicians seem likable, and they rigged the Scottish independence referendum."

"They did not," argued Simmons.

"You can't trust them, Jemma! The exit polls – "

Natasha rolled her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me up on tunglr @the-neon-pineapple

**Author's Note:**

> End Notes: The violence is mostly simulated, it is a Clever Ruse, and THEY DON'T DIE.


End file.
